The Police chief that wanted this system is no longer the Chief, and most of the alderman that approved this system are in jail, or went to jail for other reasons (no joke) I think there is only one alderman left right now who approved this system. The mayor is long gone too.
Milwaukee stuck with $17.5 million radio system that may never work right
- Thread starter mkescan
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Geeeeze....it just gets worse and worse for Milwaukee.
Now in a way I kinda feel sorry for the Police chief.
The welcome conversation I would imagine went something like this ....
City PD Assist Chief : "Welcome aboard, we here at MPD welcome you with open arms, open to your new ideas. Here's your corner office, unmarked take home car and oh by the way, we are building a radio system that is X years overdue, X million dollars over budget and the manufacture has been sold three times now, but really....we are glad your here" LOL
New Chief : " Awwwww geeeze, not another Opensky system I hope ? "
Assit Chief : "Yup"
New Chief : (facepalm) " I need a beer."
Now in a way I kinda feel sorry for the Police chief.
The welcome conversation I would imagine went something like this ....
City PD Assist Chief : "Welcome aboard, we here at MPD welcome you with open arms, open to your new ideas. Here's your corner office, unmarked take home car and oh by the way, we are building a radio system that is X years overdue, X million dollars over budget and the manufacture has been sold three times now, but really....we are glad your here" LOL
New Chief : " Awwwww geeeze, not another Opensky system I hope ? "
Assit Chief : "Yup"
New Chief : (facepalm) " I need a beer."
Which brings me to a semi serious question. Has anyone heard of an Open Sky system which has been completed successfully? I managed a smallish ($1 Million) dollar IT system for my agency. During the due diligence phase we talked to customers of the bidders and did five site visits to various parts of the country to visit agencies using the final contenders. We eliminated two based on their failure to have finished building systems for customers. If we did that for a $1 Million system, I have to wonder if anyone did that for these multi million Open Sky (maybe we should call them Open Walllet) systems.
I don't know of many that were huge hits. Perhaps others might have info ?
York County PA I guess may be one of them. I don't follow the PA discussions, but Harris / MA/COM claims it's a huge success . Here : M/A-COM Wirless Solutions - Tyco Electronics
In the York video, I like how the Fire Chief isn't keying his CDM 1550 mic.
I also like the part where the officer asks for backup.....and sounds so calm doing it lol. Come on, if your gonna fake it, make it believable !
York County PA I guess may be one of them. I don't follow the PA discussions, but Harris / MA/COM claims it's a huge success . Here : M/A-COM Wirless Solutions - Tyco Electronics
In the York video, I like how the Fire Chief isn't keying his CDM 1550 mic.
I also like the part where the officer asks for backup.....and sounds so calm doing it lol. Come on, if your gonna fake it, make it believable !
N
N_Jay
Guest
York Co. PA is a P25 system not an OpenSky system.
Most of the notably successful OpenSky systems are Utility or Transit and not Public Safety.
Public Safety is a bear of a customer. There is a long history of "failed" systems of every technology.
Most of the notably successful OpenSky systems are Utility or Transit and not Public Safety.
Public Safety is a bear of a customer. There is a long history of "failed" systems of every technology.
rvictor
Member
I'm having trouble understanding that. What VHF frequencies would they be using? Where's all the traffic on the OpenSky 800 MHz channels coming from? I'm hearing activity on at least eleven of them right now.
Dick
There are no VHF OpenSky freqs, Fire Department is all Analog VHF radios. The vendor gave MFD the analog VHF loaner radios over a year ago when MFD had to send all the OpenSky radios back because they were not intrinsically safe.
The thing about those OpenSky 800 channels you mentioned is nobody knows what other city departments might have radios now
The thing about those OpenSky 800 channels you mentioned is nobody knows what other city departments might have radios now
Discusting! They should dump the opensky and sue MACOM for the money back. I would do what LAPD did and STAY with the UHF conventional system. It works just fine, just needs new radios/upgrade. OR hop on the MKE county system and just add some new freqs to accomodate all the new traffic. My two cents...
rvictor
Member
I misread what you posted. I mistakenly read your post as referring to MPD rather than MFD.
There is an inherent potential problem with any digital radio for use by the fire service at the scenes of fires. This may not have anything to do with problems with OpenSky since the potential problem exists regardless of the nature of the digital system. Do you know whether the MFD problem was specific to OpenSky or merely a desire to avoid digital until some of the federal studies reached some conclusions on the issue?
The MPD situation isn't clouded by the analog/digital problem. They are obviously using the OpenSky radios on the OpenSky freqs and they sound terrible when patched to the old UHF freqs. As you and I have discussed, the dispatchers and other units are having trouble understanding what's being said, so it isn't limited to some problem with the patch as I once thought it might be.
I've been somewhat tied up the last couple weeks and haven't listened as much as usual. On a couple of occasions I noticed that the dispatchers were also sounding garbled, but that seems to be better tonight.
Dick
Email I got from somebody at MFD.
We are still using vhf in both the rigs and portable. The chief of tech services discovered open sky radios were neither explosion proof nor permissible as required by the specs. Best as I had heard the fault was the vendors and they gave us enough loaners to get by until, well..whenever.
The cops are using the open sky system and they hate the digital 800. I have heard it and it sounds terrible; like listening to really flat digitized robot voices
We are still using vhf in both the rigs and portable. The chief of tech services discovered open sky radios were neither explosion proof nor permissible as required by the specs. Best as I had heard the fault was the vendors and they gave us enough loaners to get by until, well..whenever.
The cops are using the open sky system and they hate the digital 800. I have heard it and it sounds terrible; like listening to really flat digitized robot voices
Ouch M/A Com !
The odds that MPD will be loitering where IS radios are need is fairly small, as they probably wouldn't be in that environment anyway and if they were it would be turned over to MFD pronto. How would the cops know they needed IS radios in an area anyway?
Don't get me wrong, I see your point...but the cops don't handle MFD's calls
Don't get me wrong, I see your point...but the cops don't handle MFD's calls
The odds that MPD will be loitering where IS radios are need is fairly small, as they probably wouldn't be in that environment anyway and if they were it would be turned over to MFD pronto. How would the cops know they needed IS radios in an area anyway?
Don't get me wrong, I see your point...but the cops don't handle MFD's calls
I don't know, a lot of times Cops have been first on scene or the ones reporting a incident, then doing evac in that area.
N
N_Jay
Guest
Then all their equipment shoudl be IS. :roll:
radio50
Member
Interesting article in this morning's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Calling all cars? Not in the city - JSOnline
Calling all cars? Not in the city - JSOnline
JGP
Member
Maybe it is time for the city to admit that throwing dollars at this OpenSky system is a huge waste of time and tax money and find something that really works.
The city has been laying off its workers for lack of money, and it has money for OpenSky? :roll:
"when the vendor that services the consoles will no longer provide support for them"
Ouch ! There is a huge difference with "will no longer " and "can not". "WIll not" tells me that they gave up on it. "can not" means the mfg no longer has parts, salvage parts are NLA etc.
General Communications I think ?
I still work on Motorola Centracom buttons and led consoles. Upgradeable ? nope. Serviceable ? Yup.
Makes you wonder what PC based console is not going to work after 2012 ? With the Centracom Gold or MCC series, you can just replace PC's and keep it going until...well..whenever you want. The console itself doesn't care about narrowbanding, since it only handles audio and digital data.
I am glad to see the PD finally start to crackdown and get to the bottom of it. This circus has been a slap in the face for the city, M/A Com,Tyco,Harris and General Communications.
Ouch ! There is a huge difference with "will no longer " and "can not". "WIll not" tells me that they gave up on it. "can not" means the mfg no longer has parts, salvage parts are NLA etc.
General Communications I think ?
I still work on Motorola Centracom buttons and led consoles. Upgradeable ? nope. Serviceable ? Yup.
Makes you wonder what PC based console is not going to work after 2012 ? With the Centracom Gold or MCC series, you can just replace PC's and keep it going until...well..whenever you want. The console itself doesn't care about narrowbanding, since it only handles audio and digital data.
I am glad to see the PD finally start to crackdown and get to the bottom of it. This circus has been a slap in the face for the city, M/A Com,Tyco,Harris and General Communications.
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